WELSH GROUNDHOP
AUGUST 2018 - PART 2
Saturday 25th August 2018 continued:
To recap on Part 1 of the August 2018 Welsh Groundhop thus far: we've watched Canton Liberal enjoy a narrow 2-1 win over Grange Albion in Cardiff, AC Pontymister edge out Blaenavon Blues 3-2 in a closely fought contest set against an aesthetically lovely back drop, and marvelled as Newport Corinthians carried out a smash and grab raid to claim a 2-1 victory at Rogerstone, the latter of whom will probably be concentrating on shooting practice in training this week.
We left the sprawling park land and multi use sport and leisure grounds at Rogerstone Welfare behind and arrived at our next destination just a few minutes later, for a game that was scheduled to kick off at 4.15PM, but actually started fifteen minutes earlier, meaning that several people were still in the bar and probably missed one, if not both of Newport's goals early in the game... whoops!
Upon entering the Whitehead ground, somebody spotted the club banner and enquired of me: "Why is there an e at the end of VDCE? I know that Christchurch merged with Villa Dino to get the VDC, but that doesn't have an e does it?".
So, I explained to him that in 2008, the club took Eveswell Junior FC under it's wing, to incorporate a youth section under their auspices of the VDCFC organisation... and the e in question belongs to them.
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| Groundhop UK gaining media attention/recognition |
Suitably demystified my inquisitive fellow traveller marvelled at my in depth and oracle like knowledge of all things non league football, and actually went on his way to share this newly discovered snippet of information with his friends, who would all have already known where the e comes from, if they, like me, had just read about it in the match programme on the way here.
'In depth and oracle like knowledge' my arse!
I'm winging it, just like everybody else here.
Whitehead Sports & Social Club - 4.00pm
The Autocentres Gwent County League Division 1
Villa Dino Christchurch (0) 1
Dan Butler 61
Newport Civil Service (2) 3
Aysa Eidoori 8,11, Will Ridler 81
Attendance 201
As the name of the social club suggests, this is the home of the former Whiteheads AFC.
And Whiteheads Rugby Football Club still play on the adjacent pitch.
The sun was shining, the beer was flowing and the locals appeared to know how to let their hair down and have a good time... I ask you people: what is there not to like about the Gwent County League?
I'll certainly be heading to watch more football around these parts again when the opportunity arises.
Aysa Eidoori opened the scoring for the Civil Service side with a quality strike in the eighth minute and doubled their lead just three minutes later, with an even better one, finding the net with well placed and well struck half volley across the face of Harry Porter's goal that nestled inside the far post.
The visitors almost increased their lead further, when Will Ridler did well to take the ball past the advancing Porter, but screwed his shot off target.
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| The ball sits up nicely for Aysa Eidoori |
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| ...and he opens the scoring in the eighth minute |
Eidoori picked out Clark Chamberlain with a right wing corner, but though his downwards header was on target, Sam Witheridge hooked the ball away to safety, with a last ditch clearance.
Marcus Corner and Lee O'Connor, both had chances to half the deficit before the break, but the former shot straight at Nathan Williams, who gratefully gathered the ball, while the latter, though well placed and having sneaked into a good position on the blind side of the Newport defence, didn't make a clean contact or get enough power behind his shot... and as half time arrived, the away side's two goal cushion was still intact
So I hope that the Whiteheads based club understand that it was nothing personal against them and my decision was based purely on the fact that another team with the V word in their name are on the list I clubs who I have a healthy dislike for, for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with Welsh football, or non league football in general. But I digress.
Matt Nightingale made himself an opportunity to get a goal back for the home side, with a lung busting surge forward, but scuffed his shot wide of the target.
Porter charged out of his area and mistimed his attempt to clear the ball and clattered into Eidoori instead, who subsequently limped his way through the game from thereon-in. Alas, after a delay while Eidoori received treatment, Lee Morgan went for power rather than precision, from the resulting free kick and blazed the ball several yards past the wrong side of the upright.
Eidoori hobbled his way down the right flank and crossed towards Morgan, but Porter got down well to stop his side going three goals behind.
O'Conner and Corner combined well to open up the Civil Service defence and set up a great chance for Nightingale, but Williams was equal to his first time shot.
But having upped the ante and tweaked their system to counter the visitors attacking threat during the second half, Matt Smith's side pulled a goal back on the hour, when Jack Buckley threaded a forward pass into the path of Dan Butler, who drilled the ball past Williams via a slight deflection. Game on!
O'Conner was full of running and was increasingly making a nuisance of himself in the final third (and in the referee's ear-holes with his constant bickering, it must be said), while Nightingale was unlucky to his long dipping shot come back into pay off of the crossbar and Smith himself was unlucky to see his knock across the visitors cleared behind at the expense of a corner by Ewan Berry.
With it looking increasingly like this might be what they call 'a game of two halves' (even though the vast majority of football matches actually consist of two halves) and Villa Dino Christchurch were looking like good value to snatch a draw in the closing stages, Civil Service scored again with nine minutes left to go, when Will Ridler netted with a 'crafty finish' when he latched onto a long knock forward from Thomas Betts and hooked the ball over Porter, to just about seal the win for the visitors,
who finished the game with ten men, when second half substitute Berry was dismissed for an apparent second yellow yard offence, a couple of minutes later, after he was deemed to have obstructed the home side taking a free kick.
With just three minutes remaining, Matt Lilygreen almost pulled a late goal back for 'Villa' but shot narrowly over and the Blues saw the remainder of the game out to claim the three points.
FT: Villa Dino Christchurch 1 v Newport Civil Service 3
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| "Young man! There's no need to feel down! |
Mendalgief Road - 6.45PM
Gwent County League Division 1
Pill YMCA (0) 0
Lliswerry (1) 2
McCorey Allman 23, Luke Verren 88
Attendance 174
Pill YMCA, are a new team, pretty much anyway, who were conceived in 2018, after the mutually agreeable (and consenting) coupling of two local sides Pill AFC and Newport YMCA, to give the community a single club, with joint aspirations and aims of becoming a Welsh League club in the near future.
Back in 1973, Newport YMCA themselves, came into being when Newport Central YMCA and Newport Pill YMCA merged, while Pill AFC were initially borne out of two local Sunday sides, namely Mariners FC and Pill Sporting.
So now you'll be well armed when any of the above ever crops up in your local pub quiz... and you can thank me later.
The Pill Harriers ground is less than a mile away from the YMCA facility on Mendalgief Road and is where the Pill YMCA Reserves and Junior teams both play their home games.
Keeping it local tonight, the visiting side Liswerry only play just over two miles away to the east of Newport.
The infamous Newport 'white rap' popular beat combo, the Goldie Looking Chain, contain a few Pill lads among their sportswear clad ranks... and once made a song dedicated to a famous son of the 'Port, namely: the current West Bromwich Albion manager (unless I blinked and missed him moving on to yet another club this week) Tony Pulis, who actually started his football career playing for Newport YMCA, a fact that is mentioned for posterity in the YouTube footage of the song (above). The 'GLC' were also Newport County's main shirt sponsors for a while too.
The ground itself, has railings along both touchlines and at the end where the bar is, but the far end is just a boggy patch of grass. It would be possible to circumnavigate the entire perimeter of the pitch, if you had an industrial strength petrol strimmer about your person and were good at climbing over fences. The scrub-land at the bottom end of the pitch is where you'll have to go if you're wanting a photo of the the Newport Transporter Bridge with the stand at the YMCA facility and dug outs in the same picture... hand's up, I personally was sad enough to paddle down there for that very reason (but there were plenty of other saddoes doing exactly the same thing).
The pitch proved to be a massive obstacle to any player who wanted to run with the ball, or pass it along the ground. It looked suspiciously like the host clubs lawnmower was on the blink and the grass had been cut a couple of weeks ago with some blunt scissors; but the frequent calls of: "Arrgh! Effing pitch!" whenever a pass, or effort on goal went astray, added a slightly humorous touch to the night's entertainment and fourth game we'd watched today, if nothing else.
The home sided actually started on the front foot and created a number of chances, but a combination of some profligate finishing, a goalmouth that resembled a compost heap and the visitors big lump of a goalie, Ryan Morgan using his girth to good effect, kept the 'YM' at bay.
And of course, you all know what happens when one side are chucking everything but the kitchen sink at the opposition goal, but not finding that final decisive touch... and sure enough, Lliswerry broke out of defence after another attack broke down in their area, got the ball forward quickly... and McCorey spanked a shot past Mark Drew to open the scoring half way through the first half.
It took the hosts a while to regain their composure, but on the stroke of half time, Ben Lawrence scythed his way through the grass cutting and was clean through, one against, with (R) Morgan, but with a multitude of over expensive cameras with phallic lenses clicking away in anticipation of capturing a picture of a 'certain' and 'inevitable' goal... the deceptive agile Lliswerry keeper pulled off another decent save.
While the hosts didn't seem to be able to sustain the pace that they had maintained while attacking during the first half, (R) Morgan was still being kept in full employment after the break, but their chances of getting back into this game were diminishing faster than the light, and if truth be told, there were a few moments when a bit of needle began to creep in as the team in orange became increasingly frustrated, with a stubborn Lliswerry rearguard, a visiting keeper whocould be proud of his efforts on the night, a very unhelpful playing surface and (probably most of all) themselves.
Niall Simmons, the home team's main striker, tangled with Lliswerry's number six inside the visitors area, off the ball after another chance had been cleared. When the ref responded to the commotion, it was fairly obvious that he had Simmons down as the culprit of the piece and he was in trouble, but he compounded matters with a stream of expletives aimed at the official... and if he wasn't already going to get his marching orders, he certainly was now
Down to ten men and losing, the Newport based side needed to find a solution and quickly, so they moved Luke Cueto up front... and things certainly livened up a notch or two in front of the visitors goal.
Mo Hassan missed a sitter when (R) Morgan fluffed a catch and as (L) Cueto put in a burst of pace to reach the loose ball, the referee missed a 'slight' nudge by Llaswerry's Ash Sulley in the area and another chance went begging.
Lawrence swung a corner kick into the visitors area that glanced off of (L) Cueto's head and over the bar and moments later, (R) Morgan spilled the ball when trying to catch (L) Cueto's well struck half volley, but there was nobody following in to take advantage, so Llaswerry quickly shifted play forward and Luke Verren made it 2-0 when he struck a half volley past Drew in the eighty eighth minute.
The game went on into a seventh minute of added time, but i couldn't tell you very much about what was happening, because it was getting quite dark by the end... maybe the referee didn't have luminous hands on his watch and merely guessed when he should blow up for time.
FT: Pill YMCA 0 v Llaswerry 2
We headed off back to base camp and were well chuffed to be presented with a Gwenty County League handbook apiece on the coach by our resident blagger Mr Christopher Breezy, err... Biriyani, err... y'know, Laurence's mate! I'd already
book-marked three future venues to visit from within the pages of our free tome, by the time we got back to our digs, where I promptly fell asleep really quickly and was out like a light almost immediately, after watching three hundred and sixty minutes of football and having taken in copious lungs full of healthy country air in one day, and I was woken a couple of hours later by the theme music to 'Match of the Day... unfortunately it was the soundtrack that accompanies the end credits.
Oh well, I s'pose there might be such a thing as watching too much football, but phew! I am glad that I have recorded the programme and the 5.30PM kick off game between Nottingham Forest and Birmingham City off of Sky, to watch as soon as I get home.
By way of a coincidence, Forest and Blues are two teams I will be watching in person later this week, against Newcastle United and QPR respectively.
But there are still six games to cover here in South Wales over the next two days. Starting with Vale United v STM Sports Old Boys in Corntown tomorrow morning... apparently the weather forecast reckon that we are going to get a bit wet if we venture outdoors on Sunday
Pah! Just how bad can a 'bit of rain' be!?
Find out the answer to that question... and more (but not much more) when the third and fourth parts of this Welsh Groundhop serialisation arrives, via a wooden boat, captained by a bloke called Noah, who is also transporting a pair of every single kind of animal known to mankind, apart from Unicorns!
Parts three and four of this long winded narration of the Welsh 'hop', will appear once I get home, to the 'mainland' so to speak, by which time we will have visited six more grounds in the principality.
Bring it on!
